On Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 11:36:51 PM UTC-5, septimus_...@q.com wrote:

It is his third collaboration with Nina Hoss that I've seen. Hoss
has always been a mesmerizing presence without being an especially
good actress; her blond elegance always barely conceals a certain
shabbiness in her character's past, if not a shabbiness in her soul altogether. In his other films she is more like a Bressonian model,
a Vertigo Kim Novak. In _Phoenix_ she has probably given her best
performance by a mile, her neediness and disillusionment devastating
to watch.

What does "good acting" really mean anyway? Kent Jones had an article
on the subject in a recent issue of "Film Comment" but it is mostly
about defending actors against director-centric auteurists/purists.

I'm not sure I wasn't being unfair to Nina Hoss, so I went back and
looked at _A Woman in Berlin_. (Nice to have a DVD library; how I
wish I had bought a copy of Liv Ullmann's _Faithless_ when it was
lying around for $2.) I remember that as one of her best roles
prior to _Phoenix_. She is very good at holding herself still.
(I think directors love that in actors, especially if they are
blond!) She holds the same grim pose and expression forcefully
and consistently, which propels the film forward. (The NYTimes
review explicitly states that the film is "held together by the
force of her performance," according to Wikipedia.) She is
the audience's surrogate. Because she is so grim and still
most of the time, the few times she bursts into emotions or
just motion (e.g., riding a bike) the film startlingly comes
to life (helped by the hand held camera work in those instances
-- it is really a very well-made film).

The flip side is that she does all this in her other films
too, like _Barbara_ and _Yella_. They become another typical
Nina Hoss performance, not helped by the fact that she doesn't
change her appearance very much. Hoss was not quite the latter
day Emmanuelle Beart with her eternal pissed-off pose, but
was getting there. That's why her work in _Phoenix_ is so
refreshing and surprising.

Interesting to compare her with Rebecca Hall, who is a
chameleon, whose face can seemingly do 10 different things
at the same time, to say nothing of her hands and shoulders
and all the rest of her subtle motion. Sometimes an actor
excels by embodying the director's vision (like _A Woman
in Berlin_). Sometimes she saves the film and director
from themselves (_The Prestige_ and Nolan). Hoss won a
Silver Bear for _Yella_ -- who am I to say she didn't do
exactly what she set out to do there.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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_Phoenix_ is an unobjectionable film about a Jewish woman (Nina Hoss)
returning from Nazi death camps. She has plastic surgery to repair
her destroyed face, and hope to unite with her husband who may
have betrayed her in the first place, and who now wants to scheme
with this now unrecognizable stranger (or so he thinks) to inherit
his wife's fortune, recovered from the Nazi's. Hoss' character,
eager to be with him at any price, plays along, setting up a powerhouse
finish to the film. The poignant play-acting rehearsal scenes recall
_In the Mood for Love_. (Others may bring up _Vertigo_, but I have
absolutely no love for that film's visual histrionics, or Kim Novak's affectless performance.) The shadow-play of identity swapping and
reinventing also recall Cate Shortland's _Lore_. _Lore_ is the
better film, though, and for my money, Shortland is a far better
director than Christian Petzold. Look forward to her next film.

Director Christian Petzold does not seem to have a recognizable style,
I think, beyond a certain degree of visual spareness and fondness for
drab landscapes and industrial anonymity (function of his growing up
in the eastern part of Germany?) Here at least the "Phoenix" night
club is in Fassbinder saturated hue, its make-believe tawdry glamour
in stark contrast to the bombed out city streets of post WWII Germany.

It is his third collaboration with Nina Hoss that I've seen. Hoss
has always been a mesmerizing presence without being an especially
good actress; her blond elegance always barely conceals a certain
shabbiness in her character's past, if not a shabbiness in her soul
altogether. In his other films she is more like a Bressonian model,
a Vertigo Kim Novak. In _Phoenix_ she has probably given her best
performance by a mile, her neediness and disillusionment devastating
to watch.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of mesmerizing, Christopher Nolan's _The Prestige_ tries to
do that to the audience with his usual tricky, too-neatly-tied-together screenplay while the dueling magicians on-screen (Hugh Jackman and
Christian Bale) attempt to dazzle *their* audience with increasingly far-fetched stagecraft. Michael Caine plays the mentor, just like
in the _Batman_ films, while the women in the film, already few in
number and slight in importance, drop dead with alarming regularity
(also as in _Batman_).

If film is metaphor for cinema, this film has serious bad-faith
issues. The characters are supposed to be remorseful about neglecting
and betraying their wives and ladyfriends, but spend most of their
time in one-upmanship games. (Jackman's character claims to be
avenging his wife -- why doesn't he just kill his opponent?) The film
seems to be criticizing them for doing that, but of course the
director *also* expends most of the runtime and energy depicting the
stupid magic tricks and ignoring the ladies (or dispatching them out
of the picture). Meanwhile, what does this say about the audience (both
those in the film, shallow and easily dazzled by magic tricks, and
those who watch in movie theaters, ditto)?

At least I watched the film for the *right* reason, namely, Rebecca
Hall. What an astonishing actress; her every gesture is so truthful
and honest it puts the story to shame. Scarlett Johansson gets third
billing, but while undeniably beautiful in period dresses, she isn't
even the second best actress (that would be the spirited Piper Perabo).
Why do critics continue to cuddle this limited, one-dimensional
thespian?

Regarding Nolan's screenplays: I just watched Julio Medem's _Chaotic
Ana_. Medem is someone who writes truly brilliant, open-ended
stories, which sometimes leave you scratching your head but you
cannot help enjoying their intricacies. There is no attempt to tie
everything together. _Chaotic Ana_ is far from his best film,
but it has mystery and layers of secret in it. _The Prestige_
screenplay tries to channel magicians, but Nolan, as usual, has
to bare all the secrets to show us how clever he is. The film
becomes as much a let-down as a show-and-tell about how magic tricks
are performed. Can we have more Julio Medem instead?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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